Nature at the Heart of Economic Resilience: Why the Nature Stage Is the Most Important Room at CIF26

The Stakes: A $44 Trillion Dependency We Can No Longer Ignore

The numbers are stark. Nearly half of global GDP — approximately $44 trillion — depends highly or moderately on nature and its services. Yet for decades, our economic model has treated nature's resources as free, infinite and indestructible. The consequences of that assumption are now arriving in balance sheets, insurance claims and commodity markets.

Extreme weather and ecosystem degradation drove $327 billion in losses in 2024 alone, and analysts at Business for Nature warn that unchecked nature loss could threaten $2.7 trillion in annual GDP by 2030. When ecosystems fail, supply chains stall. Water scarcity pushes up production costs. Deforestation triggers reputational crises. Invasive species and pollinator collapse disrupt the raw material flows on which global manufacturing depends.

"Without biodiversity, supply chains falter, costs rise and reputations suffer. Biodiversity is the bedrock of human health, wellbeing and security." — World Economic Forum / ISO

This is not a future risk. It is a present one. And the Nature Stage at CIF 2026 has been designed precisely to help organisations move from recognition to response.

 

What the Nature Stage Will Do

Positioned at the intersection of climate, nature, finance and technology, the Nature Stage focuses on implementation — not aspiration. The agenda has been built around five practical objectives:

• Building private sector leadership to improve the risk and resilience of supply chains and geographies

• Showcasing real investment structures in nature to enable replication and scaling

• Enabling deal flow into nature-based solutions by connecting investors with high-integrity opportunities

• Inspiring innovation and collaboration between nature tech, consulting services and catalytic finance

• Developing understanding of regulatory and voluntary systems that de-risk and regulate investment in nature

The day's sessions move from macro framing to granular implementation. Speakers from Nestlé, Aviva, Unilever, the TNFD, WWF, the European Climate Foundation, Global Canopy, Oxfam and the World Resources Institute will share real case studies, live data tools and investable deal structures — not slides, but solutions.

 

From Tipping Points to Tangible Opportunity

The day opens with a keynote on Earth's tipping points and the supply chain collapse that follows when they are breached. From soils and pollinators to forests and freshwater, the session will set out the cascade of risks that businesses can no longer afford to treat as someone else's problem.

This frames the first major session — 'Nature-Powered Resilience: Transforming Climate Risks into Economic Opportunities' — where Franck Saint-Martin of Nestlé and Thomas Viegas, Group Nature Lead at Aviva, will explore how nature-based investments are delivering risk-adjusted returns while protecting coastlines, stabilising water systems and securing critical biomes.

A landmark partner session then takes on the mainstreaming challenge. Tony Goldner of the TNFD and Andrew Mitchell, Founder of Global Canopy, will examine how the nature-risk disclosure landscape is maturing — and what it means for investors and corporates seeking to price nature into their decision-making.

Nature-aligned business models unlock access to carbon, biodiversity and ecosystem-service markets valued at roughly $700 billion, plus premium pricing, supply security and a lower cost of capital.​

A fireside chat on water security follows — one of the most urgent, concrete and underpriced nature risks of our time. Climate change is intensifying droughts, floods and scarcity across every region. Jo Trevor of Oxfam will explore how working with ecosystems — through forest preservation, natural infrastructure and smarter land management — can secure reliable water supplies for communities and businesses alike.

 

TNFD, Satellite Imagery and the Science of Exposure​

One of the most eagerly anticipated sessions of the morning is a dialogue on nature-related risk and data. Moderated by Alexandra Pizon, Nature Positive Lead at Global Canopy, the session explores how organisations can identify, assess and manage nature risk using satellite imagery, geospatial data and TNFD-aligned frameworks.

The research underpinning this session is sobering. A 2025 peer-reviewed study in ScienceDirect found that biodiversity risk significantly undermines supply chain resilience — with especially acute vulnerability in manufacturing firms with limited diversification. It identified maturity mismatch and agency costs as key channels through which ecological degradation flows into corporate fragility.

The session will ask: how can investors and corporate risk teams use emerging data tools to map exposure across assets, supply chains and geographies — and deploy capital to reduce it?

 

Food, Fibre and the Blue Economy: Nature as a Supply Chain Strategy

The pre-lunch programme concludes with two sessions that get into the commercial specifics of nature and supply chains. Johan Eliasch, Chairman and CEO of Head BV and Co-Founder of Cool Earth, delivers a keynote on forests and economies — making the case that intact forests are not a conservation luxury but an economic necessity.

This is followed by one of the day's anchor sessions: 'Nature and Supply Chains: Securing Food, Fibre and Natural Products', moderated by Edward Davey of the World Resources Institute Europe. Simon Duchatelet, Financing Manager of the Unilever Climate and Nature Fund, will be among the speakers examining how direct investment in nature can enhance supply chain resilience, reduce climate impact and attract co-investment from external capital providers.

Agriculture is the leading cause of global biodiversity loss — yet it is also one of the sectors most exposed to the consequences of that loss. As one academic study notes, an estimated 64 per cent of agricultural land is already at risk from pesticide pollution, which destroys pollinators, harms soil microbiota and makes food systems less resilient to pests, pathogens and climate volatility.

"Four major value chains — food, energy, infrastructure and fashion — drive more than 90% of human-caused pressure on global biodiversity." — Deloitte Insights​

A fireside chat on the Blue Economy will also explore how marine and coastal nature-based solutions can be structured to support resilient coastal economies — examining public-private partnerships, policy support and financial innovation that de-risks early-stage investment and unlocks scale.

 

The Afternoon: Credits, Capital and COP17

After lunch, the Nature Stage turns to the architecture of the markets that will finance this transition. A 45-minute session on 'Durable, Credible Carbon and Biodiversity Credits' — moderated by Sara Stefanini of Carbon Pulse and featuring Sylvie Goulard, Co-Chair of the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits — will examine how high-integrity nature-based credits can deliver real climate mitigation and biodiversity gains.

The morning closes with a policy dialogue looking ahead to COP17 Biodiversity in Armenia. Moderated by Anita De Horde of Finance for Biodiversity, and featuring Laurence Tubiana — President of the European Climate Foundation — and Marco Lambertini of the Nature Positive Initiative, this session asks the questions that matter most at the finance-policy interface: How can governments unlock private investment in nature? What policy frameworks are needed to build resilient supply chains? And what must businesses and investors do to influence the outcomes at COP17?

 

Why This Matters Now

The World Economic Forum now ranks biodiversity loss and extreme weather among the decade's top ten global risks. Corporate disclosure laws are expanding to cover nature. Investors are beginning to price it. And the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted by 196 countries in 2022, has created a global mandate for action — with execution, transparency and accountability still to be delivered.

The opportunity on the other side of that delivery is significant. A World Economic Forum analysis has identified annual nature-related business opportunities worth $10 trillion that could create 395 million jobs by 2030. Nature-aligned business models unlock access to carbon, biodiversity and ecosystem-service markets already valued at $700 billion, along with premium pricing, supply security and lower costs of capital for first movers.

But as Business for Nature's CEO Eva Zabey has written: too many corporate nature strategies focus on short-term harm reduction and disclosure — not long-term restoration and resilience. That is precisely the gap the Nature Stage is designed to close.

"Businesses today face a choice: ignore nature and expose your operations to escalating risks, or understand your business' relationship with nature, develop a nature strategy and turn it into a source of resilience, revenue and opportunity." — Business for Nature

 

Join Us on 22 June at Guildhall, London

The Nature Stage at the Climate Innovation Forum 2026 is where climate resilience meets commercial strategy — and where ambition turns into delivery. Whether you are an investor seeking high-integrity nature-based assets, a corporate mapping your supply chain exposure, a policymaker preparing for COP17, or an innovator developing the next generation of nature tech, this is the room you need to be in.

For more information and to register, visit climateinnovationforum.org or contact info@climateaction.org